With summer just around the corner, some of you may be facing major moving and furnishing expenses. Here’s a complete guide to maximizing the rewards and returns on these purchases.
When planning a relocation, you should consider several typical moving expenses. These costs vary depending on the distance to be covered (from the same neighborhood to the other end of the country), whether you use professional movers or do it yourself, etc.
Here are some common moving expenses to keep in mind :
Remember that these are general expenses, and the actual costs can vary based on your circumstances. It’s a good idea to create a budget and estimate these expenses to better plan your move.
When you move house, you may be faced with a number of common furnishing expenses as you set up your new home. These expenses can vary based on your needs, preferences, and the condition of your new residence.
Here are some common furnishing expenses to consider:
It’s important to note that these expenses can vary significantly based on your needs and budget. Think about prioritizing your purchases according to what you need immediately and what you can acquire over time. In addition, you can buy new items or opt for second-hand ones to better manage costs.
The most obvious way to save money on moving costs and furnishing your new home is to do it yourself, instead of hiring professionals and buying what you need second-hand.
For example, we recently benefited from a buy-one-get-one-free offer for paint, which reduced our costs by half!
With your budget, you can more easily separate your moving and furnishing expenses down by categories in order to choose the right credit card to pay with.
For example, the Tangerine World Mastercard has the Home Improvement, Furniture and Gas categories where you can earn a more elevated cashback return.
With the Tangerine World Mastercard you can change your reward category each month. It takes a month for this to take effect, so it’s best to plan ahead.
Another option for getting the best return on your purchases would be to identify all the expenses that can be purchased with a gift card found in grocery stores. For example, you can buy packing supplies and small appliances on Amazon. At IKEA, you can find all kinds of kitchen accessories, furniture and home decor at an affordable price.
Gift cards for these two stores, to name but a few, can be found in grocery stores. Therefore, if you use a credit card with a high multiplier in that category, like the American Express Gold Card from Scotiabank at IGA, you could earn up to 6% cash back on those moving and furnishing expenses.
Suppose you don’t feel like juggling several gift or credit cards during this (naturally stressful) period. In that case, you can also make your moving and furnishing expenses worthwhile by unlocking the welcome bonus on a new credit card.
It’s just as lucrative (if not more so), and simpler to manage, because you can put everything on the same credit card. For example, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard offers a generous welcome bonus and an extended purchase guarantee, which can be useful when splurging on a brand-new washer and dryer!
The Scotiabank American Express® Gold Card offers an attractive welcome package. For example, you can use the Scene+ points bonus at IGA to reduce your grocery bill.
While we encourage people to employ credit cards only as a payment method and not to finance their moving and furnishing purchases with them, balance transfer promotions can be a helpful tool.
These balance transfer promotions are often shaped the same way:
For example, see this balance transfer offer from CIBC (for the CIBC Select Visa* Card) or this other balance transfer offer from MBNA (for the MBNA True Line® Mastercard® credit card).
The balance transfer period, interest rate and transfer fees vary from offer to offer. In addition, you can benefit from these offers as a new customer or receive one to activate as an existing customer.
The aim of balance transfers is to take advantage of a lower interest rate while your money is being put to better use elsewhere. When used correctly, it’s an effective way to save money.
We signed up for the CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card to take advantage of its generous 10% cashback bonus; we made regular purchases and unlocked the bonus. Then, around two months later, we received a letter about a balance transfer offer at 0% interest for 10 months and with a 1% transfer fee.
In the meantime, my spouse has applied for the National Bank World® Mastercard® and met the spending requirements. Since that card came with excellent purchase insurance, we bought several large appliances with it.
We then entered the CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card, which had a balance transfer offer issued in the form of a cheque that we could deposit into the account of our choice; the funds from the balance transfer could pay another credit card balance directly, but for our property management, we opted for a cheque.
As we see here, we incurred a 1% transfer fee on the $5,000 we had available.
When the cheque was deposited, we paid the National Bank World Elite Mastercard bill in full, as usual, to clear the balance. The purpose of doing it that way was threefold:
While 10 months is not a long-term timeframe to invest in the stock market, we often have promotional saving account bonus interest like this one:
In fact, over the past 12 months, I’ve taken advantage of an interest rate offer of 5% for 4 months with my CIBC Savings Account and another savings rate offer of 5% for 5 months with our Tangerine Savings Account that followed.
By using the balance transfer promotion, I saved $5,000 instead of paying off the credit card right away, and I earned interest on that amount for 9 of the 10 months I took advantage of the balance transfer.
Don’t forget that we also took advantage of sign-up bonuses for the CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard®.
Holding several savings accounts with different institutions is an excellent way to take advantage of promotional savings rates, as they only apply to new deposits made over a short period of time.
If you have accounts at several banks, you can (almost) always benefit from higher savings rates by moving your cash around. With ordinary savings accounts, you take no risk, which is also excellent for building up an emergency fund!
To sum up in terms of numbers, this strategy of using CIBC’s balance transfer instead of our own money gave us the following results:
We already have savings accounts with several different banks and usually receive offers once or twice a year from each of them. If not, you can also take advantage of additional welcome bonuses and immediately high savings rates by opening them!
Moving tip: Have your first groceries delivered to your new home to make moving easier and get your fridge stocked quickly, without having to order pizza! A service like Voilà par IGA helps you save time and lets you focus on the important things to do around the house. Take advantage of our promo code by July 31, 2024.
Moving and furnishing expenses can quickly add up. However, if you set a proper budget and buy second-hand as much as possible, you can save a considerable amount of money.
As for purchases you must make in stores, carefully establishing a credit card strategy to maximize your returns or to take advantage of hefty welcome bonuses is an excellent way not to leave any cash or points on the table.
Taking this a step further, the option of credit card balance transfers can be another practical tool for saving money and growing your savings or investment account.
Every time we use our hard-earned money, it’s also a question of opportunity cost, and depending on how you can shape it, you can come out ahead!
You need to calculate the professional mover’s hourly rate, the number of people (or pairs of arms) involved and the duration of the move. This can vary between $100 and $200 per hour, depending on the time of year.
For an apartment, it can be 3-4 hours. For a complete house, the move can take a whole day (6 to 8 hours).
Are there heavy objects like a piano, grandma’s big solid wood buffet, a precious work of art or a hot tub? If so, there will be an additional charge of at least $100 or more per item. Travel and mileage charges are also applicable if the distance to be covered is great.
Don’t forget the associated costs, such as disconnecting and reconnecting services, buying cardboard boxes, unpleasant surprises, address changes and pizza for everyone at the end of the day!
2 conditions must be met for the provincial (CRA) and federal (Revenue Quebec) governments:
You can choose between the detailed or simplified method for deducting moving expenses. Forms are available on various government sites to help you with your tax return.
Eligible moving expenses are :
Savings are here:
